The print version of the Straits Times article about the opening of Lucasfilm's new Singapore facility that we linked to a few days ago contained an interesting quote from Kathleen Kennedy about the connections between future Star Wars movies. The blog Toys Revil caught the quote:

"The spin-off movies, or we may come up with some other way to call those films, they exist within that vast universe that [George Lucas] created. ... There is no attempt being made to carry characters [from the standalone films] in and out of the saga episodes."

This is the first indication we've had about the relationship between the spinoffs and the core episodes, and there are several ways to interpret Kennedy's remarks. One interpretation is that characters with continuing saga roles -- like Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, and their descendants -- most likely will not get standalone movies, because then they'd be carrying back and forth.

Another, more straightforward explanation is that Lucasfilm will not shoehorn the unrelated, possibly new main characters in the spinoff movies into the saga episodes. Given the indications we've seen that the spinoff films won't always be about preexisting characters, this second explanation seems reasonable. The thinking behind it would be: Why try to squeeze a new bounty hunter or diplomat into a core episodic film just to create continuity with their spinoff movie?